Reviews with content warning for Violence - The Lathe of Heaven

Reviews tagging 'Violence'

The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin

6 reviews

ehmannky's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

A thoughtful dystopian novel that asks us to consider how we are meant to live in the world, how psychology/psychiatry can be used as a tool of oppression and manipulation, what is the "greater good" when the "greater good" is being enacted without the consent of the people being effected, and what does it mean to find balance in an imperfect world. It's a short novel with a lot of big themes, and I found it incredibly powerful with a really compelling and fast-moving plot.

Content Warnings

samdalefox's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

I enjoyed the concept and found the the book easy to read. It's short enough to get through in one sitting if you enjoy a full evening of reading. I think many important moral and philosophical points were raised, but I did find that the pacing of the story weighed things down for me, especially around 50-80% of the way through, the pace slowed and the storyline seemed repetitive.

However, pacing aside, this is a solid classic scifi book where a simple concept is continually escalated until we see its natural (disastrous) conclusion. Both lead characters, Haber and Orr, are imbued with heavy symbolism. And the tertiary character

Heather Lelache

has particular significance with respect to identity. I would like to have seen more exploration of the

Aldebaranian aliens

I found their characterisation interesting, their interactions with Orr moving, and their potential insights into 'iahklu' and 'Er' perrehne' fascinating. It's a short read but packed with meaning, symbols and emotions. It shows us that the world is complicated, maybe meaningless, there are no easy solutions. We should embrace the constraints and learn to live within them.

It wasn't until page 149 that I understood the title of the book 'The Lathe of Heaven'...

A lathe is a machine for shaping wood. Orr is consistenly described throughout the book as been a solid block of wood. Haber sees him as an inert insignficant lump, while Lelache sees him as a pillar of immovable strength. Haber can be interpretted as the lathe trying to shape Orr, the block of wood, by using Orr's effective dreams as a way to intentionally change reality. Haber explicity says his goal on pg 149 as "then this world will be like heaven, and the men will be like gods.".

Haber and Orr represent opposites in the extreme. Haber - Selfish benevolence. Disrepect, or at least misunderstanding, of nature. God ego. Insatiable will/ambition. Individualism. Ultimately his perfectionist tinkering led to eugenics, and the climate changes issues persisted throughout all his changes. Who did he really help? Did the means of achieving the desired ends, justify them? e.g.,

by removing the existance of concepts of race and ethnicity can one really say he solved racism and white supremacy? No, he simply stripped people of their idividuality and cultures and homogenised them. It is a blunt tool that made a short cut through a nuanced problem...

Whereas Orr - passive. Acceptance of nature. No desire to impose his will upon the existing order. Desires harmony and just 'to be'.

Quotes:

"Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.

"Things don't have purposes, as if the universe were a machine, where every part has a useful function. What's the function of a galaxy? I don't know if our life has a purpose and I don't see that it matters. What does matter is that we're a part. Like a thread in a cloth or a grass-blade in a field. It is and we are. What we do is like wind blowing on the grass."

"But the big man was like an onion, slip off layer after layer of personality, belief, response, infinite layers, no end to them, no center to him. Nowhere that he ever stopped, had to stop, had to say Here I stay! No being, only layers."

"He had gone into sleep research and oneirology in the first place to find therapeutic applications. He was not interested in detached knowledge, science for science' sake: there was no use in learning anything if it was of no use. Relevance was his touchstone..

"A person is defined solely by the extent of his influence over other people, by the sphere of his interrelationships; and morality is an utter meaningless term unless defined as the good one does to others, the fufiling of one's function in the sociopolitical whole."

"Orr was not a fast reasoner. In fact, he was not a reasonor. Hi arrived at idas the slow way, never skating over the clear, hard ice fo logic, nor soaring on the slipstreams of imagination, but slogging, plodding along on the heavy ground of existence. He did not see connections, which is said to be a hallmark of intellect. He felt connections - like a plumber."

“We're in the world, not against it. It doesn't work to try to stand outside things and run them, that way. It just doesn't work, it goes against life. There is a way but you have to follow it. The world is, no matter how we think it ought to be. You have to be with it. You have to let it be.”

“The quality of the will to power is, precisely, growth. Achievement is its cancellation. To be, the will to power must increase with each fulfillment, making the fulfillment only a step to a further one. The vaster the power gained, the vaster the appetite for more. As there was no visible limit to the power Haber wielded through Orr’s dreams, so there was no end to his determination to improve the world.”

"It's not that he's evil. He's right, one ought ot try and help other people. But that analogy with snakebite serum is false. He was talknig about one person meeting another person in pain... You have to help the other person. But it's not right to play god with masses of people. To be God you have to know what you're doing. And to do any good at all, just believing you're right and your motives are good isn't enough. You have to... be in touch. He isn't in touch... He sees the world only as a means to his end. It doesn't make any difference if his end is good; means are all we got... He can't accept, he can't let be, he can't let go."